


Gold Doesn't Buy Happiness

by the_authors_exploits



Series: AJ's AUs [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Gen, M/M, Star Gazing, Western AU, also animal death so..., check the wordcount, hurt!jason, mentions of abuse, pining!roy, soft cowboys in love, there's a lot of star gazing and emotions over stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-21 16:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9557981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits
Summary: There's tragedy in the way the dust curls with the wind; there is tragedy in the way the cross stands slightly askew; there is tragedy in the way the sun glints off the gold in his hand





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaptainIronAvenger1996](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainIronAvenger1996/gifts).



> So, uh, happy birthday KitCat? I know you know what this is but tada~~ Hope you enjoy! (and sorry it's so late)

The stars have always been bright; they wink at Roy when he tips his head back to admire them. He doesn’t remember the last time he slept under a roof; even when they stop off in towns, him and Jason somehow always end up under the stars. They could have already paid for a room in the town’s hotel, or whatever shitty bar will give them a spare room—share, because they aren’t fortunate enough to carry that much coin in their pocket; and besides, they’ve shared everything their entire lives—but somehow they’ll always end up out back, leaning against saddle bags or each other, Roy choking on Jason’s smoke.

The fire to his left flares when kindling is tossed on it, and Roy rolls his eyes to watch the shadows dance across Jason’s face; they play on the two day stubble on his chin, against a smudge of dirt on his cheek, the healing black eye he got in that barfight. Jason glances up from the pile of twigs and leaves at his feet, sensing Roy’s eyes on him, and the firelight dances in his aquamarine eyes.

The stars have always been bright, but Jason’s eyes have always been brighter.

Roy thinks he could drown in them; “Which star is yours?” he asks instead. He wraps his arms around his knee and leans against it.

Jason tips his head back to look at the sky and Roy lies to himself about the temptation of watching Jason’s skin stretch across his neck; he turns his head side to side, eyeing the bright sky, searching and searching. He thrusts his hand out and points to a small star in the distance. “That one.” He turns back to the fire, glances over the flame at Roy who quickly turns his gaze away. “Which one’s yours?”

Roy immediately points to a star near Jason’s, dimmer but larger; “That one.”

Jason nods, flops from his haunches to the ground, and considers the fire; Roy regards their stars, ponders asking why Jason chose that star tonight. It’s a ritual; each night, they choose a new star. A new star to die with the coming sun, symbolic of surviving another day.

Roy sighs, then looks to the left, admires the cadence in which Jason breathes; “so why that star?”

Jason flops backwards and a plume of dust curls around his body, silhouetting him. “It’s small; unnoticeable. Why that star?”

Roy looks back up at the sky, at the pair of nebula pieces pulsing together. “Because it was near yours.”

Jason laughs, hearty chuckles bursting from his lips, deep in his throat, straight from his lungs; his spine arches slightly, and he lays an arm over his eyes. “We’re always near each other.”

So they have been; Roy smiles and looks to the sky once more. It’s another day, another day survived, so Roy lays down; he plucks his hat from the dirt, pats it clean, and lays it over his face. A bit more shifting, a breath, a sigh… And Roy settles for the night.

The fire is burning, the night is cool, the sky twinkling and Jason breathing easily under the sounds of the wilderness around them; Roy is content.

The sun rises in hues of gold, strips of pink floating through the horizon, and Roy wakes to cerulean green eyes reflecting the soft colors; Roy lays still, scrutinizing his companion, memorizing the way his shoulders square strong and his chest expands with each breath.

“What’s for breakfast?”

Roy startles, and he jolts upright. “Um, oh! We’ve still got some grits left.”

“And bacon,” Jason adds, and with one more look at the sunrise he turns for their saddlebags.

Roy stokes the fire into a crackle once more and begins the process of cooking their breakfast; the bacon is always the easiest, strips of meat laid out on a campfire stone or a greased skillet, cooking on their own. The grits take more time, stirring and adding water as he goes; they’re dry, tasteless, as they ran out of sugar a week ago.

“Think we’ll come upon any jobs in the next town?” Steam curls around Roy’s ears, and he stirs a wooden spoon in the small pot.

Jason, standing where they tied their horses to a pile of rocks, brushes a hand through his gelding’s golden mane. “Hopefully; if not, we’ll go on to the next town.”

Roy spoons the grits evenly on two plates, flips the bacon, and passes Jason a plate when he joins him. “We’re running out of food and money.”

Jason shovels the grits in his mouth, pulls a face. “We’ll figure it out.”

The bacon is crisp so Roy pinches the strips between calloused fingers and lays two on Jason’s plate, two on his own; they eat in silence some more, and when that is done Jason packs their bags while Roy banks the fire. They saddle their houses when the sun is beginning to burn a bright yellow; Roy pats his pinto pony with care, cinching the saddle and attaching his bags. She’s a calm thing, tossing her head in welcome but standing rooted and still; Roy runs his fingers through her mane, smiling softly.

“Good girl,” he whispers, glancing over her brown coloring to where Jason tests the stability of his saddle; one hand firm upon the saddle horn, another on the curved back, tugging gently. His palomino bends its neck to grasp at a strip of bramble bush, and Roy hooks his boot in the stirrup and swings up.

He tips his hat, a black thing with a hole in the brim where use has destroyed it, and plucks the reigns up; shifting, ready to move, Roy turns to his partner. Jason’s been watching him, and he looks away quickly when he’s caught staring.

“You ready to move out?” Jason asks, and his own hat—a hideously bright red thing—reflects the sun.

They ride throughout the day, pausing on occasion to drink from their canteens or eat the extra strips of bacon; they talk, muttering a warning about the rattlesnake near the dry bush or the idea of a soft bed.

Their dusty mounts meander into Greenway as the sun is passing towards the horizon, some lengthy time after lunch but a short while before it disappears forever; they fall out of step, Roy slowing down behind Jason’s palomino. They slink down the street, Roy tipping his hat to the ladies who smile at him and offering a supportive smile to the working women; Jason’s red hat catches everyone’s eye, and some kids gaze in awe and some girls giggle behind dusty hands.

Roy wonders at the face his partner makes, shifting with the gait of Sundance beneath him; is he frowning, is he winking to a child for a laugh, does he even care that people are constantly enraptured by him? By his squared shoulders, his sharp jaw, the scar across his brow from a fall out of a tree…

 _“Why’d you name it Sundance?”_ Roy remembers asking when Jason had bought his horse; they’d tried to make it on Snakeskin alone, but the pony wasn’t the best ride for two growing boys.

Jason had scratched his dull nails across the horse’s nose, reverently and with gentle care; he’d done it to Roy once, over his shoulders, when Roy was really sick and vomiting his insides out all over the dirt. _“When the sun comes up I sometimes want to dance.”_

Roy hides a smile in his handkerchief as he wipes sweat from his face; he’s yet to see Jason dance at sunrise, but he’s hoping one day Jason will fulfill his dream.

“Here good?”

Roy glances up; Jason is indicating the town’s saloon, where they can normally find extra beds for real cheap, and Roy nods. He starts thinking up bargaining ideas, ways he could lower the price. They still need to board the horses, and get more provisions…

Jason’s already tied Sundance to the hitching post, has already taken three mighty steps inside the saloon, before Roy can even dismount; Roy takes his time in tying Snakeskin next to the gelding, gently patting the animal’s flank and combing a hand through Sundance’s golden mane. He takes a moment to glance into the trough, making sure there’s enough to quench the horses’ thirst, and then he saunters into the saloon.

Jason is just coming out, glancing down to the cash in his hand so he doesn’t see Roy; Roy catches his partner around his upper arm, hand bracing Jason before he can stumble.

“Whoa there, buddy!” The quirky smirk on his face is evident in his tone, soft and congenial, bordering on a chuckle. “Did we get a room?”

For a moment, Jason doesn’t say anything; he just blinks his expressive green eyes, thick lashes fluttering with the dead wind, and then he looks back down to the cash in his hands. “Oh, uh, yeah; they’ve got a room. Just a small one for about 3 dollars; we’ve got a door to the balcony so that’s nice.”

When Jason goes to tuck the money away Roy’s hands get jostled and he realizes he’s still holding onto Jason, here, under the awning of a saloon, on the wooden walkway of a town they have no part of; here, together, is the only place they’ve ever fit in. Roy takes his hands back as if he’s been burned, though he doesn’t care if he touches Jason for hours.

“Great,” Roy glances towards the horses who are lapping water greedily; he tips his hat back and settles his hands on his hips. “We should board the horses; do we have enough to buy provisions afterwards too?”

Jason shrugs; “we can make do.”

Boarding the horses is pricey, but they knock off the stable hand grooming them, mucking their stalls, or tacking them up; Jason and Roy can take care of all of that to save some money. They work hard, brushing down each horse in the musty dirty air of the barn; outside the streets roll with activity and moments of lull. They take the saddles with them back to their room at the saloon; the sun is beginning to set, and Jason takes a moment to lean against the counter and question after any odd jobs the town might offer.

The bartender too leans against the counter, setting a cup down in front of a patron. “Odd jobs? No, not here; maybe down in the valley.” He grabs a cloth and wipes down a bottle of whiskey to fight the stickiness. “Ya know where the Winding River is? There’s a little town few days south of the fork, little place called Rattler Way; heard they’ve got a few bounties, and they can always do with a few extra hands around.” The man shrugs, turns for another bottle, fills another mug. “S’long journey but easy and steady money.”

They retire to their room shortly after, piling their saddles in the corner and washing one at a time at the basin on the nightstand; they talk over quick plans to move out the following morning.

“We can hunt.” Jason’s voice is quiet, soft, and downstairs the music kicks up and a woman shrieks with laughter; he’s kneeling over their saddlebags, categorizing and organizing, and Roy gets distracted by the way his fingers curl over an extra strip of leather. “There’s a lot of rabbit in the valley.”

His mouth is dry, is caked in dirt and something sweet, intangible; he blinks and looks away when Jason ruffles a hand through his still damp hair. “So we’ll grab some grits and fresh fruit tomorrow before heading out, and hunt as we go.”

“Do you think we’ll have enough for some beans too?”

In moments like this, when they’re just them two, just talking in soft tones and gentle gestures; like how Roy helped brush the water through Jason’s long hair, how Jason ran the cloth over his shoulders to wash the dirt and grime away. How Jason’s hand wrap delicately about packages and cloth, how Roy doesn’t want to move because this is peaceful and holy.

“We should,” Roy answers. “Especially if we don’t buy any meat.”

They repack, and Roy lays down first; they have one bed, but it’s big enough to fit them both comfortably. And it’s not like they used to seek each other out in the middle of the night, when fears drove them together; and it’s not like they still do seek each other out, when the stars are sequestered behind dark clouds and their dreams are less comforting than normal.

Jason doesn’t follow though; a lantern is kept lit, and he holds a small book in his hand, curled against the dresser, and Roy’s eyes slip closed to Jason’s eyes crawling across the page, a nail tucked between his teeth in focus. He wakes to an empty room and the door to the balcony thrown open; he doesn’t mind being awakened. His sleep wasn’t deep to begin with.

He steps out onto the wooden platform, glances down the windy road to where a pair of men stumble and sing loudly and offkey about a miner forty-niner and his daughter Clementine; the night is brisk, but Roy doesn’t shiver.

“Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’…”

He smiles softly, glancing over to where Jason smokes his last cigarillo; it’s telling how much he’s craving beans if he’d rather spend their money on that than more cigarillos. Jason sits against the banister running about the wrap around balcony, his legs tucked up and spread so his hands can hang between them; the cigarillo hangs from his lips and Roy wonders what it tastes like.

“Oh my darlin’ Clementine,” Roy continues the song, his voice mimicking Jason’s angelic tone.

“You were lost and gone forever.”

“Dreadful sorry, Clementine…”

Jason huffs a soft laugh, taking the tobacco out of his mouth. “Remember when we used to sing that? We didn’t realize what it was talking about.”

Roy leans against the balcony and smiles across to the brightly lit hotel; “light she was and like a fairy.”

Jason tips his head back, stares up at the sky with a warm gaze. “Used to be the only thing that would shut you up.”

Roy scoffs, and Jason’s lips quirk before he clears his throat and shifts.

“You were a crybaby.”

“I was not.”

“You cried when I scraped my knee.”

Roy’s weight alters to the other leg, and he traces the grooves in the wood. “That was one time; and it was a bad scrape.” Roy turns his head towards the stars. “Which is yours tonight?”

He makes a show of standing up, mimicking Roy’s position, and pointing out towards somewhere to the left, past Roy’s face. “That one.”

Roy squints, but can’t quite follow his instructions. “Which one?”

Jason takes his hand in his and Roy immediately tucks his fingers against his palm, keeping his index outstretched, and Jason directs him; “that one; right there, at the end of that line.”

It’s part of a constellation, Roy knows; the image of a man holding a severed head and a sword (or is it a spear?) aloft. He just can’t remember the name for it, but the star is inconsequential among the creation, shining in the darkness, and Roy smiles softly.

“Which is yours?” Jason’s breath puffs across his cheek and Roy turns to point at the other end of the street, sharing air with Jason’s lungs.

“That one there; see it?” He doesn’t care which star it is; he just wants to memorize Jason’s profile, though he knows each scar well. The one upon Jason’s brow, the one on his knee, on his hands, across his chest…

“Hm,” Jason hums, and his hair tickles Roy’s skin when he tips to the side and presses close, head tucked against Roy’s shoulder. “The bed is too soft.”

Roy stays still; if he moves, Jason will move. If he touches Jason’s skin, Jason will run; they’ve been at this crossroad before, and Jason has always been skittish. “We can set up on the floor if you’d rather.”

Jason doesn’t say anything, so Roy doesn’t push; they stand there in quiet companionship, soaking in each other’s warmth in the cool of darkness, two drunks singing a ditty down the road. They eventually retire to the room, when Jason’s breath hitches and he jolts away; Roy gives him a moment, and then leads the way into their room.

He drags the bedding to the floor, watches Jason curl around a flattened pillow, tucks the blanket around his broad shoulders; he settles next to him, and in the shadows he can touch. A soft brush of fingers across Jason’s cheek has his eyes—so green, so wonderfully bright—slipping closed, his breath evening into deep inhales and soft exhales; the bed is too soft and strange, but they are familiar tenderness to each other.

They don’t talk about it in the morning, as always, and they leave the town behind with saddlebags laden with provisions and an extra cigarillo; Snakeskin and Sundance trot in rhythm, hooves beating, muscles moving. Jason hums Clementine, and Roy smiles; the days are kind to them, and their travel is easy. They hunt a few fuzzy rabbits who lend them meat for several meals, and Jason indicates a bright star while Roy points out one close by.

“What would you do,” Roy questions quietly, as Jason dozes off besides him, tucked against his side. “If you struck it rich?”

A lazy smile pulls at Jason’s lips, but he doesn’t open his eyes; he stretches a hand out and fingers the hem of Roy’s shirt. “I want a ranch.”

“Cattle?”

“Hm,” Jason hums; his breathing eases, and Roy doesn’t know if he’ll get an answer. “Horses; I want to breed horses.”

Come the morning, Jason doesn’t dance with the sunrise but his eyes twinkle and Roy basks in the light.

They come upon a large meadow, still a few days ride from Rattler Way having crossed over the river, of tall wheatgrass and bugs chirping; an eagle flies overhead and Roy tips his head back to watch it. When he looks forward again, Sundance has been pulled to a stop and Jason looks away, splotches of red high on his cheeks.

“Did you see it?” Roy points to the cloudy sky; “the eagle?”

Jason shakes his head; that stupidly red hat is askew, and Roy nudges his pony forward to fix it. His fingers brush the hat’s brim when the commotion comes barreling from the left; he pulls his hand back and turns to address the interruption, the hooting and hollering of mad men and firing of pursuing guns no registering until it’s too late.

Sundance rears, Snakeskin tossing her head and shifting, as the mass of horses and men alike come rushing straight towards them; Roy pulls on Snakeskin’s reigns to reorient her, to find an opening and take it, but the posse—golden stars glinting under the sun—and their quarry are faster. They engulf the pair, stampeding around, and projectiles fly through the air; a deputy goes down, and Sundance rears once more. Jason cries out in alarm and Roy calls his name, but over the commotion—over the chaos—his voice doesn’t carry far.

“Jason!”

A horse collides with the ground besides Roy, and Snakeskin bucks, knocking Roy into the lengthy grass that’s being trampled; Roy ducks out of the way of a Joker minion. He knows it’s the Joker Gang because they’re the only ones who initiate members by giving a Glasglow Smile, the Cheshire grin, slit from ear to ear to forever grin in scarred tissue; the bright hair is a give away to, sickly greens and yellows staining beneath wide brimmed hats. They hoot, and laugh, and shriek, and one sticks the end of a hatchet in a deputy’s shoulder right in front of where Roy crouches fearfully; the deputy, a young teenager barely older than seventeen, collapses with a deadened gaze.

Roy’s head swivels in panicked movements to find Jason; he spots Sundance, the one brightly golden creature among the fray, and Jason grips the reigns in a ply for power against the creature. Roy barely has time to register the scene before Sundance goes down in a burst of red; the gelding shrieks quietly, though it may not be him over the din of the firefight around them, and while the blood soaks his mane his legs give way.

Jason goes down with him, and Roy watches him wriggle out from under the horse and go running for the rock pile at the edge of the meadow; Roy glances over when a Joker member barrels straight for him, a blunt weapon raised to cut Roy down, and Roy rolls out of the way. He tries to find Jason again, tries to call out for him, and finally pulls his gun out.

A deputy comes close, gun raised to kill Roy, and he hesitates only a moment before taking aim himself and pulling the trigger; the deputy falls off his mount, and Roy defends himself as best he can. He’s not used to a firefight; if anything, he and Jason have only ever stuck to fistfights. The guns had been fired on occasion, out in the sandy dunes or the grassy prairie, out in the woods at squirrels or deer or to fend off rattlers.

It seems so easy, Roy thinks as he watches another bullet rip through a man’s stomach, to take a life; his gun is empty in short time, and he hunkers down where he is next to a big boned thoroughbred taking its last breath. He wonders briefly where Snakeskin is, hopes Sundance is ok (and if not, that he didn’t suffer too long).

The firefight dies down slower than it started; having begun like the sudden flickering of a lantern come to life, it dies down as the sun rises. Slow and sluggish, the sounds of dying men permeating the air with the smell of iron blood and metallic smoke, the occasional quick clip of a revolver firing and the sudden silence of a voice.

Roy peers through the waving tendrils of scratchy grass, watches as the remaining gang scours the destroyed field for survivors of the pitiful justice league; the leader sits upon a jet black stead, his scars horrid upon his face though his lips stretch thin and wild. His horse scuttles about, anxious for another run, and he calls for a count, laughing at the number.

“We ride out!” the Joker, leader of his horrendous gang, laughs and points onwards; while the survivors, a few bunch, go trotted excitedly onwards the leader takes a slower gait. He surveys their wreckage, the massacre they’ve wrought; Roy holds himself still, the knees of his pants sinking into the dirt beneath him. Then the scarred grin turns venomous and his revolver looks so light in his hand as he takes aim to a figure crouched low in the grass.

It’s Jason; it’s his black hair and his effervescent eyes clouded with fear. It’s his tensed muscles and his empty gun at his feet; it’s the way his body moves, slowly uncurling from his hiding spot as the leader urges his antsy stead closer. The horse’s gait mimics the leader’s ego, his inflated confidence, and Roy feels as if the world has stopped spinning, as if fear is a giant with giant hands that clasp the orb and squeeze.

The wind howls across the wheat grass, and Roy watches wide eyed as the gang leader grins maniacally down from his horse; the man’s face is scarred horribly, visible even from the distance Roy is, from ear to ear. A grin forever in place, and Roy feels sick though if that’s because the man’s aiming his gun at Jason is more probable than the self-mutilation; the man squints down his gun sights, smirk still disgustingly in place. His finger twitches on the trigger.

It’s like time slows to a near still for Roy; his eyes widen, and he can see Jason’s own eyes—a beautiful soft green that Roy can hardly begin to describe—widen, his mouth falling open to cry out. Roy tenses to move from his hiding place among the wheatgrass, legs clenched to launch forward, and he moves like molasses. Not fast enough to beat the finger on the trigger.

The gun goes off, and Roy yells when Jason jerks; Roy takes one step, arm reaching out, leg bending and stretching out in slow motion. He crushes some yellowed grass beneath his feet, uncaring as Jason disappears in a slow arc to the ground, obscured by the grass Roy continues to destroy; the gang leader shoots twice more, his horse making frightened whinnies and scuttling about. He then, a cackling laugh echoing off the trees and the hills surrounding them, turns his steed away from his victim and kicks the thing into a gallop. The man leaves gore in his wake like it’s natural.

Roy only gives him a glance, feeling the blood rushing in his muscles; let him run. The world is only so big, there are only so many places he can hide; what’s most important is getting to Jason. And he does, leaving a crumpled hectic path behind him in the drying grass, running to a stumbling stop when his partner comes into view; hallowed by the dusky yellow grass, Jason looks ethereal.

But he’s not; the dark stain on his shirt, at his shoulder, his stomach, his hip, spreads like a sickness. His chest shakes in uneven breaths, and his hand curls; red coats his fingertips, grasping at open air, and his eyes roll to catch Roy’s panicked gaze.

“Roy,” he croaks out, and Roy goes to his knees.

“Ok,” Roy breathes. “Ok, it’s ok; I’m here.” He presses his hands to Jason’s hip, and then to his stomach, and then back to his hip; frantic, unsure. “Hang in there, buddy.”

There are other destroyed caverns like theirs, where the grass bends, where others lay dying, where others are still and slowly chilling; but this crater is writhing with movements and emotions. Roy glances from the wounds to Jason’s face, watches his distant gaze drift across the cloudy sky; they’ll be ok. They’ll be different than the other inlets; they’ll make it.

“I’m going to go get our saddlebags.”

It’s not the first time he’s seen blood; out here, in the wilderness, injuries were common. From that snakebite Roy suffered that Jason cut open to try and drain the venom, to that time Jason cut himself while carving a bear figurine… Blood, injuries, bruises; they’re common, some not always from mistakes.

(There was the orphanage, and fights fought against adults and children alike; some for justice, some for food, all for survival. There’s the time Jason approached Roy with a split lip and a refusal of explanation; and the time Roy’s knuckles cracked against another boy’s jaw for a comment on Jason’s heritage, and the time Jason stepped out of a room with a bloodied knife in his hand and a far off look in his eyes. They are no strangers to hardships.)

Roy stumbles upon Sundance next to a deputy dressed in hideously obnoxious chaps; the gelding met his end near the beginning, and Roy’s blood slick hands work furiously to pull the saddlebags off the deadweight. He goes searching for Snakeskin after, pausing on occasion to check over a body in case he finds something useable; an easily removed shirt or some such. One man grasps dirt, dragging his broken body across the ground.

“H-help,” the man gurgles, reaching out, and Roy steals the revolver at his hip.

Snakeskin returns with her head held low, frightened but loyal, and Roy drags her—too worried over Jason to be careful and tender—back to Jason’s side. He presses a ripped cloth to Jason’s shoulder wound, fits Jason’s unsteady hands over the wound at his hip, and tries to separate his own attention between the shoulder and stomach; they’re all bleeding, bubbling up like a geyser, and Jason’s pained noises—drawn out groans, loud cries of pain as his boots dig into the dirt—when Roy shifts are enough to make his bones rattle.

“The bullets are still in.” Not one is clear through, and Jason turns his head away. “I’ve gotta dig them out, Jay.”

His hand comes up, away from his wound, and clutches bloody handprints into Roy’s shirt sleeve. “Just do it,” he grits out.

Roy doesn’t want to do it here, still jittery and anxious, as if the gang will come back to finish them off; Joker had seen him come sprinting across the meadow for his partner, but had left him. For what purpose, Roy doesn’t know; he doesn’t care.

He gets a small fire going, to sterilize the knife, and then returns to Jason’s side; his shirt is soaked with blood, and Roy sets his hand near one of the wounds. Jason hisses, tensing, and Roy apologizes.

“I’ve gotta dig them out, Jason.”

He nods, eyes opening to stare intently at Roy’s face, and his hand returns to grip at Roy’s shirt sleeve; “I know; just do it.”

Roy can’t hesitate or he’ll hurt Jason worst, so he doesn’t; he digs the knife in and pretends Jason’s groans and screams don’t echo across the graveyard meadow. The first bullet is easy, having been stopped by bone in Jason’s shoulder, and Roy tosses it aside with blood slicked fingers; he moves onto the next wound, more careful as he searches, and it takes three tries before the bullet pops free. The third wound, also stopped by bone at the hip, comes out easily like Jason’s screams tapered off ages ago, his grip slack.

Roy stains the grass with the blood from his hands and considers burning the wounds shut; he decides it’d be best for now, and the sizzling of flesh jolts Jason from his pain induced haze. His back arches, hand scrabbling around Roy’s shoulder for relief, his eyes wide with his jaw dropped as he writhes.

“I gotta, you’re going to bleed out.” He sets the burnt metal of his knife against skin, cauterizing, and Jason’s scream escapes his throat finally; Roy wonders if anyone else is still alive around them, what they think of Jason’s voice. Roy loves it on most days, but when he’s crying out in pain, breathy curses passing over chapped lips, Roy hopes to only ever hear it in his nightmares.

By the time the third bullet wound is seared shut Jason is quiet; when Roy removes the hot knife and sits back, he feels his partner’s limp grip tighten on his shirt. Jason pulls his leg up, pressing his foot against the ground, and he presses his forehead against Roy’s knee; they breathe there, connected in every way it matters, in tandem. Roy buries his hand in Jason’s hair.

“I’m sorry.”

Jason doesn’t say anything back; he gulps air, and Roy doesn’t want to pull away for the canteen. But Jason needs to drink something, to soothe his sore throat and help quench the heat on his skin; Roy scrubs his dull nails across Jason’s scalp before standing. Immediately, Jason’s eyes pop open and the grip that was knocked loose reaches up for Roy.

“I’ll be back,” Roy promises. “I’ll always come back.”

Snakeskin is close by and Roy grabs the canteen and returns to Jason’s side; he props his partner up on his knee, one arm slung around his shoulders and his head cradled in the crook of his arm. He tips the canteen against Jason’s lips.

“Drink.”

Jason does, small but needy sips, and Roy relishes in the weight of his body against him, alive and warm and his. His friend, his soulmate, his entire world and universe; his sun and moon and stars… The breath he breathes.

“We need to get to Rattler Way,” Roy says when they’ve sat there for too long. “You need a doctor.”

“Then…” Jason licks his lips, eyeing Snakeskin. “We need to move.”

“Sundance didn’t… Sundance is…”

He keeps his green eyes shut, turning further into Roy’s chest. “I know.”

They’ve had little in their life to call their own; sometimes it felt like the clothes on their backs weren’t theirs. Their horses, their companions, have always been special to them.

Roy gets Snakeskin ready for the journey, compiling what he can into the saddle bags across her back; the canteen is kept securely on the horn, and Roy knows the pony can’t carry Sundance’s saddle bags and her own. So he goes through what they have, tucking scraps of food into his set and leaving behind what he has to; he strips an old shirt into bandages and wraps Jason’s wounds.

“This isn’t familiar at all,” Jason quips tiredly, a smirk tugging his lips.

“Those were scrapes, Jay.”

“I remember you crying over those scrapes, Roy.”

Roy smiles. “Don’t you start singing Clementine.”

Jason chuckles; Roy fits his hands under his arms and pulls him to a sitting position, gives him a minute to catch his breath, and then swings them to stand up. They stumble, pressed against each other’s side, stepping forward together; Roy supports Jason into the saddle, and Snakeskin’s flank twitches. Roy swings up behind Jason, pressing close against his back; he clicks his tongue and kicks Snakeskin into a trot.

They leave the meadow behind, a dreamy place trampled and ruined, and move onwards; they’ll make it. Though Snakeskin is not built to carry such a load, she does so heartily, snorting in effort as she loyally marches over unfamiliar territory towards their destination. Roy doesn’t stop pushing her, knowing they have to get there as soon as possible; the burn at Jason’s hip has reopened, bleeding again as the skin is stretched, and Roy feels it soak through the makeshift bandages.

When the sun goes down and Roy can’t tell one bush from a rock, he makes camp; he settles Jason first, covered in a blanket leaning against the saddle, and he warms the grits and a strip of meat. Something light but substantial all the same, and Jason stomachs several bites of the grits; he refuses the meat and Roy lets him drink his fill of the water.

Roy refuses the food himself, and the water, though he lies to Jason about it; he knows the water isn’t going to stretch long and Jason deserves everything. Roy redresses the wounds, ponders reburning the hip one when he sees the blood he’s lost; but not just yet… It’s too painful, and Jason looks exhausted already. Roy settles next to him and they watch the stars above; fighting sleep, Jason rolls his head towards his companion.

“Which one’s yours?”

Roy turns his eyes from watching Jason breathe to the sky above; he searches and searches until he finds one he resonates with and points it out. “That one.” Burning low but large…

“Hm,” Jason hums sagely, as if he knows exactly which one Roy pointed out. “S’nice one; like you.”

Roy brushes his hand across Jason’s temple; “and you?”

Jason doesn’t say anything, obviously resting already, so Roy glances up at the sky and points one out, nearly touching his own.

“That one is yours.”

The following morning Jason eats some more, drinking water, and Roy changes his bandages again to stave off infection; they ride tandem for half the day until Snakeskin trembles and Roy knows he needs to walk. So he settles Jason in the saddle, apologizing for the pain, and leads Snakeskin over the bumpy ground.

They settle that night, Jason’s skin clammy and pale; he chokes a few bites, but swallows the water like it’s nectar from the God they’ve never believed in. Roy settles Jason against his chest, too worried to leave him be, settles Jason’s head against his chest. The sky above watches over them, and Snakeskin whinnies, tossing her head unhappily.

Roy presses his cheek to the top of Jason’s head; they only curl close like this when sleep or fear tears down their walls, their defenses, when they can rely on each other without fear of judgement. Roy doesn’t think Jason is fearful right now, but Roy? Roy has started to feel the pull of terror.

“What star are you?” Jason’s tongue is heavy.

Roy stretches to look around, not jostling Jason at all, and he catches sight of one almost above them; he points to it, barely removing his grip from Jason’s body. “That one,” he whispers.

Jason doesn’t move but he hums long and low; “The one next to it.”

“That’s you?”

There’s a soft turn to Jason’s lips and Roy resists the urge to hold him closer; his shirt is wet with blood, his body broken and sore and limp, and Roy knows they’re in trouble. Still a good few days from Rattler Way and Jason’s slipping away, Roy’s feet are beginning to blister and bruise.

They’re canteen is running low, maybe only a few more drinks left, and Jason has refused food; his strength continues to weaken, his wounds opening on occasion and Roy hesitates to burn them shut again as it saps Jason’s very soul.

The sun crests the horizon, stinging and warm, and Roy breathes deeply, evenly, fighting fear and anxiety and worry; Jason’s hand twitches, sliding slow like quicksand up to grasp at Roy’s wrist. The sun glints in his eyes when Roy glances down, bright in his dulled gaze, and Roy presses his hand to Jason’s brow; it’s warm and clammy, and his hair sticks to his skin. Roy brushes it back, fights the urge to kiss his temple.

Jason’s fingers grip his wrist tighter; he’s still watching the sun climb high, the dawning of a new day with new hopes. “I want to dance,” he rasps out.

It takes a moment for Roy to shift his grip; he slips his free arm around Jason’s waist and grasps the hand that’s not holding his wrist, lacing their fingers together. Jason’s grip is loose, and when his other hand begins to slip Roy grabs that one too; in a cross hold, Roy rocks gently, hardly jostling Jason, and he can pretend this is their waltz.

When Jason has choked down a few bites of grits, when he’s swallowed a sip of water, Roy gets them moving again; he doesn’t have time to feed himself. They have to reach Rattler Way, or Jason won’t make it.

They run out of water that day, Roy giving the last bit to Jason, the sun beating them furiously. Snakeskin’s gait falters; she hasn’t been treated well in the time since the meadow, and it shows in welts and bruises and bleeding knees. Roy pats her neck and then moves his hand to Jason’s thigh; his feet hurt, he’s hungry but too anxious to eat.

“We’re gonna make it,” he whispers; says it like a promise but means it like a prayer. “We’ll make it.”

That night, Jason doesn’t have the strength to point out his star so Roy finds it for him; the north star, noticeable and known, important and unique.

“That’s you,” Roy whispers against his throat, feels Jason’s blood pump sluggishly beneath the skin on his wrist. “I can’t find my way without you.”

Jason’s mouth moves as if to speak but his eyes flutter closed and he lays heavy in Roy’s arms; Roy maneuvers him back into the saddle. Damn the unknown terrain; they have to move, Jason needs medical attention immediately, and they don’t have enough provisions to last any longer. His eyes open, once so very vibrant now dulled and grayed, slitted and hazy; Roy kisses his limp hand.

“I’m going to take care of you; you’re going to be fine.” But the stains on the saddle horn say differently, the rawness to Roy’s throat foretells a different story; Jason’s hand grips the saddle loosely when Roy winds his fingers around it, and Roy takes Snakeskin’s reigns and pulls her along.

He’ll walk until he’s lame and then he’ll crawl if he has to; Jason will be fine.

As the sun is rising, and thirst claims Roy’s throat, and Snakeskin pulls more and more on her lead, Jason speaks; or, more truthfully, he sings.

“In a cavern… In a canyon…”

“Save your strength,” Roy murmurs, falling back to touch Jason, reaffirm he’s fine; if Roy’s throat is this dry, he can only imagine how terrible Jason must feel.

His smile is dopey, so soft. “You sing it,” he says and his voice is far away. “Please?”

Snakeskin has stopped walking, so Roy stumbles forward over uneven ground to tug her forward. “Excavating for a mine, lived a miner forty-niner, and his daughter Clementine…”

A soft puff of air from Jason; Roy sings quietly. If he never talks again it would be worth it, to see the soft smile on Jason’s face as his eyes slowly shut once more and his grip goes loose upon the saddle, slumping fully over Snakeskin’s bowed neck. He looks peaceful even twisted in a painful position, and Roy puts one foot in front of the other.

“Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’ Clementine; you were lost, and gone forever, dreadful sorry Clementine…”

He keeps singing, voice disappearing as the time wears on; by the time the town comes into view, Snakeskin won’t budge. Roy tugs on the lead, but the horse blinks at him and snorts heavily; Jason once said a horse’s eyes were the only windows to the soul. (A terrible lie, because Jason’s eyes are always so beautiful and expressive.) Roy knows what’s going to happen before it does.

She collapses there, her legs giving out one at a time until she can roll onto her side; Roy pulls Jason from her. He’s as limp as she goes, breathing heavily and foaming at the mouth, breath leaving her magnificent body; she’d given her all, and Roy thanks her quickly as she dies. He hikes his arms under Jason and keeps pushing onwards; they’re right there, the sun beating at their backs.

But Jason is heavy, oh so heavy and uncooperative; unresponsive. Roy sings, voice hoarse and wispy.

“You were lost,” he huffs, “and gone forever, dreadful sorry Clementine…”

A woman’s face is clear on the road ahead, a baby girl in her arms and three boys clutching her skirts; she calls out for help, hikes her skirt up, and goes running toward the two men. The babe stays on her hip, and the boys run at her heels, and Roy sinks to his knees. They made it; he pulls Jason into his lap, tucks the other boy’s face against his dirty throat.

“Sir!” the woman calls, and her baby—a toddler, a young girl dressed in overalls and with an unruly mop of black hair—is handed off to one of her triplet’s. She reaches for Jason and her eyes are wide.

“Help him,” Roy begs. “Help him.”

She takes Jason from him, and Roy has no choice but to let him go; he’s cold and needs warmth, he’s weak and hurt and needs a doctor. She lays Jason down, glances over him, and there are more people coming now. They crowd around, and the woman—she’s dark skinned with bright hair—kneels in front of Roy; she reaches for him when Roy sways, succumbing to exhaustion and thirst.

“Help him,” he rasps once more. “Please.”

And the world tips and turns and swims, his vision warping, tipping sideways into her strong and warm arms; darkness swallows him.

Roy awakes with a constellation on his tongue, spilling out in a croaky hurried _“Perseus”_ and then there’s a woman tipping water down his throat; he pushes the cup away eventually. “The constellation,” he says, voice only a little stronger; he remembers Jason’s hand on his, pointing out a star on the balcony of a saloon. “It was Perseus…”

And the star had been Algol, both bright and dimming, harbinger of murder and sudden death.

“Where’s Jason?” is the next thing Roy asks, and the woman—carrot hair more vibrant than his, and more freckles than naturally dark skin—sets the water aside to take his hands.

She tells him Jason is dead, in such simple words, as if the weather outside is sunny (it is) or the church needs repairing for pretty pay (it does); “he was chilling when you dragged him to us,” she continues, as if Roy’s soul hasn’t just drifted out with the air in his lungs (it has). “There was nothing we could do but give him a proper burial.”

If Jason was chilling, then Roy is frozen; he doesn’t feel the woman’s (Kory; he learns her name is Kory) calloused hands rub patterns on the back of his, or tuck some hair away from his face. He doesn’t feel the soft bed beneath him (it’s wrong, too comforting for what he feels, has always been too soft); he only feels a vague emptiness he can’t hold to.

“He can’t be…” he whispers, turning away from her; she has four kids, he remembers. Three sweet boys with her shock of red hair, and a girl with the deepest inky black he’s ever seen; it could even rival Jason’s. “I…I promised him.” Promised so many things, all for naught; and he’d tried so hard to save him, to bring him to safety and hearty health once more.

She leaves him, maybe to cry in peace, but Roy doesn’t; he cannot. There is nothing but a vast vacancy crushing him, as if he too has been buried beneath mounds of dirt in a lonely coffin.

When he has his strength back, he goes to the cemetery; Kory had kept Jason’s things. His gun belt, his gun, his hat, his vest; things cowboys were never buried with. Useful things… Roy takes his hat, the obnoxiously bright red thing, to the grave and stands over the blank cross; the townspeople had buried Jason, unable to keep his body until Roy would wake. He doesn’t tell the parson his partner’s name, though Kory knows it from when he’d first asked after his friend; but he doesn’t want people to know.

Jason was his, and his alone; they were each others’ everything, a world within a world, orbiting each other like gravity was glue and they were a children’s artwork. Broken pieces, orphans who only ever had each other, pieced together to form a masterpiece only a mother could love, though they had none; and they had been one, a kaleidoscope of kindness and gentleness and ever loving light. A galaxy of constellations and chosen stars, of a sun announcing new hopes, whispering words of care for only them.

To his own grave Roy will carry Jason; the sun is bright, only the barest hint of a storm in the distance, and Roy looks down to the hat in his hands. He has barely spoke to anyone since Kory had told him, and he knows the town is beginning to question his presence; he glances over when wet whispers reach his ears. A pair of girls stand at the picket fence, gossiping behind tanned hands as they watch him, and Roy lifts the red hat and tugs it low over his head.

He rides out of Rattler Way on a dark brown stallion he purchased with the little money they—he—had left; the horse, Cornrow, has a steady gait and a loyal personality. Roy finds he doesn’t care; he leaves the town with less than he’s ever had.

He rides until the sun sets, and then some; when he finds himself slipping in the saddle, he sets up camp. The fire glows, and the flat of rock he’s laid out upon hurts his bones; Roy doesn’t care. He lays back against the saddle he removed from Cornrow’s back and watches the stars blink.

He finds none that reflect him, each one accompanied by thousands of others, and sleep chases him into a fuller world; aquamarine eyes, black hair the backdrop for sparkling nebulas, a canvas of torn and scarred skin, familiar breaths across his skin... The unfamiliar but aching memory of lips on his. When he awakes, his scrabbling hand—seeking a warmth that will never be there again—bumps a chunk of solid; he grabs the loose rock.

He sits up, the sun burning bright and heavy as it rises higher in the sky, and he pulls his hand closer; he expects to throw the rock as far as he can, but a glint catches his eye and stills his actions.

The morning sun sparkles over the ore in his hand, dancing over the vein he laid upon last night; unbeknownst to him he slumbered on a fortune. The gold is heavy in his hand and he lets it fall against his knee, palm loose upon the rock, and his eyes swell.

He cries there, sitting upon a secured future of dreams; he cries there, sitting besides a horse he doesn’t know; he cries there, sitting alone under a sunrise that brings empty promises of a better future. He weeps and he mourns and the warmth’s apology means nothing to him.

He has a chunk molded into a knife; he knows it’s excessive but doesn’t care. He has the smithy etch Jason’s name into the blade, carve his initials on the white metal hilt.

He drives it through the Joker’s heart when they meet, having tracked him for months, and slits his throat with elegance, dressed in a new shirt and Jason’s red hat; when the Joker dies choking on his own blood, a sheen of red dripping across a magnificent golden name as if imbuing life into the dead, Roy returns home.

To the sprawling ranch he’d promised Jason, open and expansive, with meadows of cattle and sheep and horses; a fine breeding stock, and a gorgeous two story house that’ll always be too big and too empty.

Roy straps the knife to his thigh every morning, and every morning he’s reminded that gold cannot buy happiness.

Because, every morning, Jason is still dead.


End file.
